Fiona Apple, "Werewolf," The Idler Wheel...

Fiona Apple, "Werewolf," The Idler Wheel...

The last thing I want to read right now is a bunch of interviews with Fiona Apple. Surely, she'll do some press. Talking about your first record in seven years is something people expect when you don't make a record for seven years. Her reemergence at this year's South by Southwest suggests the past seven years haven't made her any less awkward. So whatever press she does will be awkward. And because of that awkwardness, she'll explain too much. She's already talked to Pitchfork. I haven't read it, nor will I read the rest. The Idler Wheel... is a throwback — the type of record that benefits from mystery. It's a confessional record, a breakup record every bit as biting as Adele's 21. Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's more insular; maybe the demons she's fighting aren't men, but herself. Or maybe she's projected herself onto the men in these songs? Either way, every word seems so perfectly chosen and so carefully articulated that the lyric book should be the beginning and end of what we know about Fiona Apple's headspace. And the song I want deconstructed least is "Werewolf." The record's centerpiece, thematically and emotionally, also features the set's best line, "We can still support each other/All we gotta do is avoid each other." It's followed by this: "Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key." Gorgeous — and, unlike most of the record, largely instrumentally unadorned — "Werewolf" isn't nearly as obvious as "Jonathan" (a tune ostensibly about ex-boyfriend Jonathon Ames), nor is it overly cryptic. Then again, the noisy found-sound of children playing toward the end definitely tips towards cryptic. To me, the children aside, it's about the relationship we've all had — the one that starts hot, cools off, and leaves one party more disappointed than the other. And if I'm wrong, I don't want to know.